Dia-- I agree with all 3 of your points and would just add these few comments that go in the same direction:
1. A big reason why it will be easy to raise $50 million is because the Company has already been in extensive talks with Piper Jaffray and other funds about ways to finance Phase III. Analysts like Charles Duncan fully understand the potential of Bavi and how much money PJ could make by doing a private placement offering to raise the needed Phase III funds. The days are long gone when it was only BPs who could understand the significance of (a) the ASCO data that will be presented this month and (b) the favorable FDA Minutes approving the Phase III (especially if the "early look" is set at only 150 patients).
2. Time is on PPHM's side. It will get easier and easier to get back to the "astonishing" terms BP offered back in Sept as:
(a) an Asian BP offers a Bavi license deal for the Pacific Rim / liver cancer;
(b) the Bavi subgroup analysis in Pancreatic leads to start of a new trial combining Bavi with Abraxane;
(c) 1st line NSCLC data comes in. Given Bavi's great safety profile, all Bavi has to do prove itself better than Avastin in front line is match the 20% MOS improvement seen in the Company's Ph IIa front line trial. We don't need anything close to the 60% MOS improvement seen in 2nd line for 1st line trial to be deemed a huge success;
(d) data from the pending imaging trial is released; and
(e) stunning pre-clinical data is released, IMO, as early as 2H 2013 showing how 2nd generation Bavi works in animals when conjugated with a payload.
All the Company needs to do is start the Phase III on its own and suddenly that astonishing 50:50 sharing-of-revenues partnership deal will be back on the table !
It may take another 4-6 months or it may happen more quickly, but the Company knows they can get back to a deal like the one they had in Sept as remaining Bavi clinical data matures, as alternative Bavi joint venture opportunities develop, and as BP sees that biotech analysts and funds are buying into the same story that they are waiting on.
